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Webinar - Empowering Health Care: How Horizon's Energy Evolution has led to Resiliency
Date: November 6, 2025
Time: 9am PT/ 12pm ET
Join us for an engaging webinar on how successful Energy Management is truly a team effort. From senior leadership to front-line staff, empowering people across all levels of an organisation is key to achieving lasting results. Horizon’s Energy Network has spent the past decade embedding sustainability and energy efficiency into its culture and daily operations. This presentation will highlight their journey, sharing how people have driven success through commitment, collaboration, and innovation.
This webinar is being delivered as part of the Coalition’s Preparing Health Care Buildings for Net-Zero project, made possible with an investment from the Government of Canada’s Low Carbon Economy Implementation Readiness Fund.
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You're Invited - Next Clinics Networking Hub Session - From MDI's to DPI's
Date: October 30, 2025
Time: 9am PT/ 12pm ET
We’re excited to announce our upcoming Clinics Networking Hub session featuring Dr. Geneviève Ferdais and her team from GMF Sud-Ouest in Montréal.
Dr. Ferdais and her colleagues have led an inspiring clinic-wide transition from metered-dose inhalers (MDIs) to dry powder inhalers (DPIs), reducing annual emissions by more than 900 tonnes of CO₂e—the equivalent of removing nearly 200 cars from the road—while maintaining high standards of patient care.
Join us at our next bi-monthly meeting to hear how this multidisciplinary team achieved these results, exchange ideas with peers, and explore practical ways to implement sustainability initiatives within your own clinic or office.
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Report - A Prescription for Change: Rethinking Plastics Use in Health Care to Reduce Waste, GHG Emissions and Costs
The Coalition’s Circular Clinical Care: Single-Use Plastics Reduction Project Manager, Sandra Alexandra, and our Senior Advisor for Climate Change, Linda Varangu, were featured in Eunomia Research & Consulting - Certified B Corp. and Systemiq Ltd.’s new report - A Prescription for Change: Rethinking plastics use in health care to reduce waste, greenhouse gas emissions and costs.
The report offers a roadmap to tackle single-use plastics in health care - from tubing and gloves to PPE and packaging - with interventions like reuse, material substitution, and smarter recycling. It fills key gaps in understanding plastic volumes, uniting circularity efforts, and creating a shared vision for the future.
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Article - Polypharmacy: Institutional Approaches to Support Patients, Systems and the Climate
As polypharmacy continues to rise in Canada, its impact on patient care and health care systems becomes more significant.
This article explores the consequences of polypharmacy, including increased patient risks, environmental footprint, financial strain and added workload for staff. It also highlights effective strategies for mitigating polypharmacy, such as deprescribing, non-pharmacological interventions, medication stewardship programs and mandatory medication review or stop dates.
By adopting these approaches, health care institutions can reduce polypharmacy, improve patient outcomes, optimize staff efficiency, reduce medication costs and lessen their environmental impact.
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Help Us Build a Greener Health System
The Coalition is now a registered charity—marking a major milestone in its 25-year mission to advance sustainability in health care. Donate today to help build a greener, healthier, and more climate-resilient Canada.
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Call for submissions - Canadian Healthcare Facilities - Fall Issue
CHES
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The Fall 2025 issue of CHES's journal, Canadian Healthcare Facilities (CHF), is currently seeking article submissions related to the following topics: Facility Management & Design and Sustainable Healthcare.
If you are interested in submitting an article, please contact the journal's Editor, Clare Tattersall, at claret@mediaedge.ca with the proposed topic. All topics must be pre-approved by the Editor prior to article submission. The deadline for final article submissions is November 28, 2025.
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How Wildfires and Other Climate Disasters Put Health Systems Under Extreme Pressure
The Conversation
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Wildfires are no longer rare disasters in Canada. They are now an annual reality, and 2025 has already been one of the worst on record, with 3,582 fires burning 6.2 million hectares as of July 30 — quadruple the 10-year average.
At a time when hospitals are already strained by staff shortages, long wait times and rising costs, wildfires add yet another layer of pressure. Rural communities are usually the hardest hit by wildfires. These communities rely on small health facilities with limited staff and equipment. Building resilience means improving prevention, adaptation and response capabilities in health systems before disaster strikes.
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NHS England's five year report on net zero brings welcome progress, but much more needs to be done
UK Health Alliance on Climate Change
Five years since NHS England (NHSE) published its Net Zero strategy, its new report demonstrates some progress, and NHSE’s Greener NHS programme must be commended for the leadership they have demonstrated.
However, both global emissions scenarios and scientific data have changed greatly over the last five years, and action at a far greater pace and scale is now needed.
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Sustainability-Embedded Quality Improvement Toolkit
CASCADES
This toolkit will help individuals and teams incorporate environmental sustainability into quality improvement (QI) initiatives, and envision how you can adjust, measure and report those impacts.
For new QI projects in formative stages, the Toolkit can help identify opportunities to enhance or avoid environmental impacts.
For more developed QI projects nearing final stages, the toolkit can help you showcase environmental co-benefits.
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CSA Group is looking for public review and comment on ISO 14091
CSA Group
ISO 14091: Adaptation to climate change—Guidelines on vulnerability, impacts and risk assessment provides guidelines for assessing the risks related to climate change and describes how to understand vulnerability and how to develop and implement a sound risk assessment in the context of climate change.
The Canadian adoption of ISO 14091 has been drafted, and CSA is looking for public review and comment before the standard is finalized.
Want to have your say? CSA invites you to submit comments by November 8, 2025.
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Illustrating Climate Change Impacts, Adaptation and Resilience in the North
Government of Canada
The Canada in a Changing Climate: National Assessment Process is happy to share a series of infographics that communicate climate change impacts, adaptation and resilience in the North.
Developed by Majestic Solutions and Yukon University, these graphics were inspired by the Northern Canada chapter of the Canada in a Changing Climate: Regional Perspectives Report, as well as by discussions that took place about the report at the ArcticNet 2022 conference, and conversations with youth from Nunatsiavut. We are delighted these infographics are available in Inuktitut, and English!
| | Pharmacist Checklist: Supporting Displaced Patients During a Natural Disaster | |
This resource is designed for pharmacy teams supporting patients displaced/evacuated due to natural disasters. It provides a step-by-step checklist to ensure the continuity of medication therapy and helps evaluate a patient’s urgent needs
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Trees Planted in Vancouver for the First Day of Action on Planetary Health
CBC
On October 6th, 2025 health professionals gathered across the country to mark the first National Day of Action for Planetary Health, which aims, among other things, to highlight the health impacts of climate change.
In Vancouver, the event was celebrated at Holy Family Hospital, with the planting of 15 trees around the building.
All the trees are native to British Columbia, says Fiona Dalton, president and CEO of Providence Health.
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Blooming Moments Program Brings Nature Indoors
Forget for a Moment Foundation
This Fall, the Forget For A Moment Foundation, thanks to the Ottawa Community Foundation, is proud to launch the Blooming Moments Healthcare Planter Program across Ottawa’s long-term care and health care establishments.
From October to December 2025, residents and patients in 14 participating establishments will enjoy hands-on gardening workshops led by horticulturists, Master Gardeners, and horticultural therapists. Each JASMA Health care Planter is a mobile indoor garden with adjustable height, designed to make nature accessible to everyone.
| | Energy Savings Approaches To Enhance Wellness and Efficiency | | |
Health care facilities—especially hospitals—consume massive amounts of energy, ranking third among building types for energy use. Though few in number, hospitals account for a disproportionate share of the sector’s electricity and gas consumption, contributing significantly to climate change.
This irony contrasts health care’s mission to promote health with its environmental impact. As climate change intensifies health risks, the industry must urgently cut energy use and emissions. However, rising energy costs and reduced funding challenge smaller hospitals, making it crucial to find design and operational solutions that save energy and costs without compromising patient care.
| | NEW! RETScreen® Expert Version 9.4 | |
The RETScreen® Clean Energy Management Software Version 9.4 upgrades include automated weather data services. Streaming data is now available from Copernicus – European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF – global coverage) and Environment and Climate Change Canada (ECCC – ground weather stations across Canada). Both daily and hourly data are available. These new weather data services in RETScreen provide additional sources of surface meteorology data to the global data already provided directly in the software through our collaboration with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).
Version 9.4 of the RETScreen® Clean Energy Management Software platform is now available for download from the RETScreen website.
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GHC Forum 2025: Planning Climate Action in Challenging Times
Greening Health Care
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Date: November 24, 2025
Time: 8:00am - 6:00pm ET
Location:Westin Harbour Castle, Toronto
Join fellow hospitals, clinicians, utility companies, and industry leaders for a day of insight, strategy, and collaboration, focused on addressing barriers and taking action to lower hospital utility costs and greenhouse gas emissions. The Forum will highlight successful projects, top-performing facilities, emerging policies, and the collaborative frameworks that make sustainable health care possible.
With climate change and rising energy costs as urgent imperatives, this annual gathering offers practical tools and powerful inspiration for hospitals striving to deliver better care while reducing their carbon footprint.
In person and live stream tickets available!
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Have you registered as an organ donor?
Contact your local organ donation agency and speak to your family about your wishes. You have the power to save and transform lives. Learn more and register to donate HERE.
| | The Canadian Coalition for Green Health Care is Canada’s leading network dedicated to advancing environmental sustainability in the health sector. Guided by our vision of a sustainable, resilient, and equitable health system for all, we mobilize change-makers, build capacity, and deliver practical tools and strategies that drive meaningful action. www.greenhealthcare.ca | | Some articles referred to in the Digest make reference to services and/or product offerings from specific suppliers. The CCGHC recommends that readers research the service and product offerings available through a wider range of suppliers for comparison purposes and in keeping with public sector purchasing guidelines. These articles should not be interpreted as an endorsement of any product or service. | | | | |
